I knew I needed to try out Pro Tools months ago, when I first started researching DAWs. Every website I looked at had something to say about them, ranging from “the gold standard in music production” to “the lumbering behemoth” that many feel is too bloated for its own good.
Either way, had to see for myself, didn’t I?
Pro Tools and I got off to a rocky start – I had a lot of trouble downloading the thing (it lagged my computer a LOT), so much so that I started looking at putting it on my ASUS laptop for a while. This was followed by some sound issues, first with Pro Tools, then everywhere else on my computer.
I’m willing to blame all or most of that on my aged Macbook though, and once I finally started digging in, a number of things made the software stand out for me.
Easily my favourite part of Pro Tools: It’s an editor’s paradise. Pro Tools hosts a massive array of shortcuts, editing tools, and other features that can save a considerable amount of time with common tasks like transposing notes, trimming, moving and duplicating clips, and so on.
It does take some time to learn these controls as they are not always the most intuitive, and the initial tutorial videos were sadly not as helpful as Ableton’s. Fortunately, I was delighted to find that MusicTechHelpGuy, who delivered such clear and professional videos for Apple’s Logic, has a series for Pro Tools as well. Check out his tutorial series on YouTube here.
Much like Logic Pro, Pro Tools is clearly set up for studio recording, with similar punch-in features, and a warp function that allows for fine-tuned adjustments on audio tracks. You can even quantize the transients, although Pro Tools occasionally gets confused about what constitutes a “transient”, requiring you to delete the ones you don’t want.
Another awesome feature is the pitch-shifting ability: Pro Tools gives you two options to adjust the pitch of audio – polyphonic for the “quick and dirty” version, and X-form for very high quality. The latter can be a bit time-intensive, as the entire clip is re-rendered on the spot.
Like the DAWs I’ve tested previously, creating groups and colour coding different clips is pretty straightforward, so you can separate your drums from your vocals, synths from the piano, etc.
MIDI editing was sometimes a bit tricky, because Pro Tools doesn’t always put the notes into a specific clip that can be trimmed or cut – instead, the notes themselves have to be highlighted and copied manually. Fortunately you can bring up a separate MIDI editor window to make this easier.
Automation works about the same as Ableton, if a bit clunkier – you have to click a button that looks like two overlapping rectangles near the top of any plugin, and choose the features you want to add, which allows you to view and make adjustments in the editor menu.
You can also automate the changes live, by using the steps above, activating the “latch” mode, pressing record and moving around dials as the playhead moves. To be honest though, Ableton does this far more easily.
Pro Tools boasts six high-quality instrument plugins, as follows:
- Boom – A drum synth and sequencer. It only allows 16 steps, but different presents can be set to different keys on the keyboard, allowing variations to be played with ease.
- DB-33 – An organ synth. Packs plenty of amplification and vibrato effects.
- Mini Grand – A simple piano sampler. Brightness and reverb knobs allow it to fit into a hard-hitting dance number, or a softer ambient track.
- Structure Free – A sampler with tons of patches that can be preloaded. Effectively allows your internal or external keyboard to play sounds from many instruments, with a few extra controls you can use to make them your own.
- Vacuum – A powerful monophonic synth, sporting two vacuum tube oscillators, drift and dust knobs to provide a more “weathered” feel, waveshaping distortion, and numerous modulation options.
- Xpand 2 – Another sampler, with four different channel strips, allowing sounds to be combined into a whole orchestra with the push of a button. The channels can be routed to different tracks, allowing different plugins to be used on each.
Now don’t get me wrong – I loved almost every sound that came out of the instruments above. Given that my chosen style of music is EDM however (slowly narrowing down what type – stay tuned), I was a bit disappointed how many were samplers, or ran off presets.
Yes, the Vacuum synth has a lot of potential. But compared to the range of synths offered by Ableton, or the all-powerful Alchemy synth in Logic, well.. I just didn’t feel I had as many creative options. If you like working with samples though, you’re certainly spoiled for choice.
On a similar note, I found that many of the plugins were better suited for classic rock instruments like drums, electric guitars and so on. That said, my subscription ran out before I had a chance to take a longer look, so it’s possible I missed something here.
One significant barrier to purchasing Pro Tools is well, the price. It costs $779 USD as of 2020, and even then, it only includes a year’s worth of updates. I don’t know about you, but I’m not a fan of needing to buy the same software over and over because it keeps getting outdated.
Avid clearly wants you to go for the monthly or yearly subscriptions, costing $39/month, or $45/month if you don’t want to get tied to a monthly contract. You can also purchase a year in advance for $389, which saves you a couple months.
To be honest though, I HATE paying monthly fees – they’re like little parasites, taking bites out of my income when I’m not looking. I prefer to pay more up front so I don’t have to worry about it, and Avid makes this very difficult.
Pro Tools has a lot of different windows, which can be dragged to different parts of your screen. Because it takes up so much visual real estate, I found it tough at times to see everything, especially with the MIDI editor. Not exactly a drawback, but definitely easier if you have a large display, or better yet, two displays.
To summarize: In my opinion, Pro Tools is best designed for band recording (apparently a lot of Christian rock groups seem to like it for some reason) – the instruments and plugin options both support this.
However, it’s not the best fit for artists making electronic music, due to the tricky automation, fewer options for creating sound from scratch, and more limited effects plugins for synths. Which is a pity, because with all the time-saving editing options, it might have been my first choice.